‘Singapore’s Financial Sector: How did we arrive, How do we thrive’ was launched on Aug 17, bringing together the three lectures delivered by Mr. Piyush Gupta – former CEO of DBS – during his term as the 17th S.R. Nathan fellow.
Speaking at the launch, Mr. Chee Hong Tat, Minister of National Development and Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore described the book as a “reinvention of the future of finance” calling Mr. Piyush “an outstanding corporate leader in the financial services industry and a deep thinker.”
He added that the book is relevant to multiple audiences – financial industry professionals and thought leaders will find value in its insights, while everyday Singaporeans stand to gain a better understanding of the financial sector they may one day help shape.
Mr. Piyush helmed DBS from November 2009 to March 2025. Under his leadership, the bank repeatedly clinched the title of ‘World’s Best Bank’ by Global Finance, and in 2019 Harvard Business Review listed DBS among the most transformative organisations of the decade, citing its digital overhaul.
The Institute of Policy Studies appointed Mr. Piyush as its 17th S R Nathan fellow in Aug 2025, a role established in 2014 to back serious research on Singapore’s policy challenges.
From August to December 2025, Mr. Piyush researched the evolution of Singapore’s financial sector and delivered three public lectures at the National University of Singapore.
Namely, they were: ‘Balancing stability, trust and innovation’, on the policy choices and institutions that built Singapore’s financial industry, ‘Reinventing finance in a digital age’ – a lecture on digital transformation in finance, covering the eighteen-fold jump in FAST payment values between 2015 and 2024 alongside the rising toll of scams and cybercrime, and finally, ‘The future of finance: How Singapore can continue to punch above its weight,’ addressing digital currencies, tokenisation and the case for bolder policy moves, including a possible digital Singapore dollar.
Nearly a year later, those talks have been collated into a printed record of Mr. Piyush’s lessons and takes on how Singapore can keep the financial sector thriving.
At the launch, Mr. Piyush reflected on the industry’s pace of change, and said, “The industry is exciting, cutting-edge and rapidly changing but it is anchored in being meaningful and purposeful.”
